Spain’s Prado Museum has confirmed that a painting that was due to be auctioned in Madrid in 2021 is in fact a work by Italian Baroque master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio that was considered lost.
In April 2022, Spanish authorities halted an auction of the work, which was due to be sold with a starting price tag of $2200.
The value of an authentic Caravaggio would stretch into tens of millions of dollars.
The work titled Ecce Homo (Latin for Behold The Man) will go on display from May 27.
“Since its reappearance at an auction three years ago, Ecce Homo has represented one of the greatest discoveries in the history of art,” the museum said.
“Painted by the great Italian artist around 1605-09 and believed to have once been part of the private collection of Phillip IV of Spain, the painting is one of around only 60 known works by Caravaggio in existence, and thus one of the most valuable old master artworks in the world.”
